What Can We Learn from the Amish?
Published in Communities: Life in Cooperative Culture magazine Spring 2019, issue no.182 For most people throughout human history, community and land were inseparable. From the earliest hunters and gathers, people banded together in small groups for mutual support. Even the Creation story of many religions has a Creator making man and woman together - the first community - and placing them in a garden. With the family unit, the community grew to include others to form tribes and as time progressed, to form cultures and nations. For the early Christian hermits living in the deserts of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, isolation was normally only temporary as the hermits still came together in community every week to worship, break bread, and commune. In fact, the very words “communion” and “community” are clearly related - coming together as a community to share. Truly, man has never been alone and wa...